Buying advice

The decisions a buyer makes once rather than daily, and what the data says about each one. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy a particular car: the aim is to make the trade-off legible so the choice is yours. Two rules shape everything in this section. A figure that cannot be sourced is not published, so a missing number stays missing rather than being filled with an estimate. And a decision that depends on your own circumstances — your tariff, your mileage, the chargers you actually pass — is handed to a calculator rather than answered with an average. The pieces in this section: the used EV checks that change the price you should pay, which covers open recalls on a VIN, the chemistry in the pack, the port the car was built with and observed range against the EPA rating; and should you charge your EV to 100%, which turns out to depend on which cells are in the car rather than on any general rule.